The Brief Newsletter

• White House spokesman Sean Spicer argued that the CBO’s 2010 analysis of the Affordable Care Act was off. “If you’re looking to the CBO for accuracy, you’re looking in the wrong place,” he said. But as the New York Timesnoted, Spicer has cited the agency’s work in the past.

• President Trump has previously used the agency’s estimates to criticize President Obama and Democratic legislation at least 13 times, including its numbers on the stimulus bill, the health care law and the economy.

There is historical precedent for the CBO flip-flopping, too. The Times reports that President Reagan called its estimates “phony” when the agency raised flags about his tax cuts, but Republicans were giddy when the body’s analysis of President Clinton’s healthcare plan signaled trouble in the 1990s.